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Title: Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy by Philip Evans, Thomas S. Wurster ISBN: 0-87584-877-X Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: January, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (64 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Very thought provoking and useful
Comment: This work revolves around the deconstruction (or "blowing up" into pieces) of organizations and value chains. It develops an interesting argument that traditional value chains combine the "economics of things" and the "economics of information" into a compromised model that will not survive deconstruction as superior economics of information are introduced. It is further argued that the change in the economics of information will come about as technology removes the tradeoff between the richness and the reach of information.
Although the ideas are perhaps not fundamentally new, the analysis is brilliant. The clarity of presentation is evidence of the authors' backgrounds as consultants and the work will certainly assist to clarify strategic thinking as organizations grapple with alternatives. It also demonstrates where future competition is likely to come from.
I have found this well worth the read. It is full of real life examples that increase understanding and allow comparisons to one's own ideas. I will recommend it to anyone interested or involved in business strategy.
Rating: 5
Summary: How information economy is going to blow your business?
Comment: It is common sense to say that industrial age businesses will have to change to enter in the new Information economy, but the reasons to change are not often clearly explained. Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster are giving some sound answers in their book: "Blown to Bits".
In fact industrial age businesses are historically built on two compromises: Information bound with things and a trade-off between richness and reach. Information is embedded in things to reach through physical channels the final consumer, who have some difficulties to get complete unbiased information on things he buys. On the other hand, physical constraints and costs are creating a need to find balance between richness (depth and detail of information) and reach (access and connection). A salesman is able to bring richness to chosen customers when advertising is reaching more people with less richness in information. The management of Information non-transparency and asymmetry is often the base for a competitive advantage.
What is happening if Information can travel separately from things and if it is possible to offer richness and reach at a same time? In that case the industrial age compromises are blowing up and competitive advantages based on asymmetric Information are disappearing putting many businesses in danger. This is what is happening with the development of computers networks using common standards to communicate in the Internet world where geography and time constraints are disappearing. Information can be unbundled from things and richness, at zero marginal cost, can be supplied with extended reach. The competition battlefield is moving from profitable cross-linked activities constituting a typical industrial age organization to individual profitable activities: "blown to bits." To compete there is no need to attack on all fronts for destabilizing a traditional company. Just concentrate on the more profitable activities-classified ads for newspapers, best customers for banks-makes it possible to "deconstruct" a business. Offering richness and reach together-deeper information on a larger range of products than retailers-makes it is possible to "desintermediate".
It's real hard time for traditional organizations, which have no other alternative than to "deconstruct" and "desintermediate" themselves their own business, before somebody else is doing it. But this task is not easy against the "navigators" as Yahoo!, Intuit, but also Amazon. These one are helping consumers to find their way in the Internet marketspace. They supply reach, richness and create a link with consumers by affiliation. They concentrate more on consumers' needs than on suppliers' one and have the objective to gain a critical mass giving them an added value. Traditional companies, often too closed to their physical offer, have lower reach than "navigators" and have difficulties to gain affiliation from customers who are suspecting them to promote their own products before liberating an impartial Information. However, they can build on a slight advantage in product richness, when products are changing rapidly.
To really compete, traditional companies need to go out from their own boundaries, and collaborate with their suppliers, but also with their competitors when needed. Supply chains and organizations are "deconstructed" as value chains are. Hierarchically leadership becomes obsolete to give place to a new leadership creating a culture and shaping a strategy, which will be the "glue" for a new corporation, a purposeful community.
"Blown to Bits" gives many other keys as enhancing "brands as experience", creating "new intermediaries" towards a fascinating "New Economy" and I can only recommend to every executive to read this book to make sure to be aboard the train going to our common digital future.
Rating: 1
Summary: Internet Hype
Comment: The authors must be embarrassed. But they are probably too busy on their next bogus book full of more mananagement consulting buzzspeak and claptrap.
"Blown to Bits"?--perhaps they were referring to the bursting of the Internet bubble??
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Title: Accidental Empires by Robert X. Cringely ISBN: 0887308554 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 23 October, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance by Larry Downes, Chunka Mui, Nicholas Negroponte ISBN: 1578512611 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: March, 2000 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen ISBN: 0060521996 Publisher: HarperBusiness Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy by Carl Shapiro, Hal R. Varian ISBN: 087584863X Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: November, 1998 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: A Brief History of the Future: From Radio Days to Internet Years in a Lifetime by John Naughton ISBN: 1585671843 Publisher: Overlook Press Pub. Date: 30 October, 2001 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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